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The World War Two bomber that cost more than the atomic bomb
- chasil 1y agoI thought that this was in Masters of the Air, but I was wrong. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masters_of_the_Air https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masters_of_the_Air
- ChrisMarshallNY 1y agoIf they had had B-29s, they wouldn't have had the almost catastrophically bad mortality rate. I believe that the 100th Bomb Group had the highest casualty rate of any unit in the entire war, on either side (except the Kamikaze squadrons, I expect).
- panick21_ 1y agoActually Kamikaze squadrons had lower mortality rates then when Japan did their conventional attacks against the US Navy. In conventional attacks whole groups of planes flew right into the teeth of US air defense, fighting threw 3 layers of death and getting annihilated. The reason they adopted Kamikaze was that normal air-attacks were suicide but suicide with no results what so ever. In Kamikaze the pilots had more freedom and often only attacked the outlining ships. And quite often they just bailed out, or faked engine problems and flew back. In terms of the 'strategic' bombing in Europe, the US was just incredibly arrogant and didn't want to listen to the Brits who had already learned some lessons. The way they employed air-power was outright insane, suicidal and also completely and utterly ineffective. It took smart people using internal politics to sideline the idiots to turn the strategy around and do something actually useful.
- Spooky23 1y agoA lot of criminal incompetence was erased by the ultimate victory. The insanity of the bombing campaign is one, others include the defective torpedoes that plagued the Navy for the first couple of years and killed countless sailors and airmen, and the homicidal policy of shipping in replacements to frontline units that were decimated multiple times.
- ChrisMarshallNY 1y agoWWI: “Hold my beer.” The big issue with WWI, seemed to be staggeringly incompetent generals. This appears to have been on all sides. Maybe the Americans were better, but that just may be because they didn’t have time to get bogged down. I heard that Pershing refused to follow British and French tactics. I assume that this was because many generals were trained on Napoleonic-Era tactics, that didn’t do well, against machine guns and semiauto rifles.
- tekla 1y agoThis is an incredible misunderstanding of WW1. While there were some generals that were a bit too resistant to changing strategy when it might have seemed reasonable, the fact of the matter is, is that this was the 1910s. Everyone was trying to solve the problem of trying to figure out how to fight, and no one could keep up with how fast warfare was changing. Armchair generals watching people die in almost real time from drone footage in Europe did not exist in 1915.
- ChrisMarshallNY 1y agoI’m not sure it’s a “misunderstanding.” Maybe calling them “incompetent,” isn’t fair, but they made a shitton of terrible strategic and tactical blunders, that resulted in millions of casualties. Why they made those decisions sounds like exactly what you’re talking about.
- panick21_ 1y agoThat WW1 is special is mostly a myth. The reason we have this view of WW1 is that after WW1 in the 20s many normal people in the 20s started writing about the horrors of war and that combined with the strong anti-war sentiment lead to the view we have now. Claiming that generals like Haig was an incompetent butcher. The whole 'lions led by donkeys' myth. However non of that is actually true. Or not anymore true then in any other war. For example, there is stark contrast to right after the war, where Haig was considered a hero and most soldiers in their post-WW1 writing liked him. In terms of causality rates, WW1 isn't that special, high intensity combat in modern war isn't that different, from Crimea to WW2. If you have warfare at that level, even if you are successful, you have massive causalities. The Somme for example wasn't that different from the Normandy campaign in WW2. These generals had to deal with armies of literally million of people and they didn't even have wireless communications. How do you command 500 men in a coordinated attack without communication? The Americans had to go threw the same learning curve as the others, but they started right away fighting against an enemy that was mostly veterans. Americans could have learned better, but it also has to be said that Pershing by command from the president was not allowed to fully integrate his troupes with that of the French army. > I assume that this was because many generals were trained on Napoleonic-Era tactics This is complete and utter nonsense. Please stop spreading these myths. This all just Post-WW1 anti-war politics propaganda. > against machine guns and semiauto rifles This is again a myth. Semiauto rifles practically didn't exist in the beginning of WW1. And machine guns had existed for a while and were not that effective. The big killer on the battle field is the fast shooting artillery. Massive innovations in that had happened in the 30 years before WW1.
- missedthecue 1y agoHighest casualty rate was actually u-boats. Of 40,000 kriegsmariners trained for u-boats during the war, 75% became casualties. Incredibly, this was even higher than Kamikaze squadrons (on account of the fact that not all flyers were assigned a mission, and not all missions ended up finding a target)
- Aloha 1y agoThe B-29 was a fantastically unreliable aircraft until almost after the war was over - https://theaviationgeekclub.com/heres-why-the-b-29-could-have-had-a-higher-loss-rate-than-the-b-17-and-b-24-over-germany-in-1943/ https://theaviationgeekclub.com/heres-why-the-b-29-could-hav...
- stevenwoo 1y agoThe one pilot they highlighted in the series completed his missions in European theater (to be fair he only flew a few when the Allied casualty rate was horrendous) then signed up to serve again and volunteered for B-29 training so he could fight in the Pacific but the war ended before he could fly missions against Japan. IIRC he then volunteered to help with the Nuremberg prosecutions.
- pfdietz 1y agoBy the end of the war the loss rate in B-29 missions over Japan was lower than the loss rate in B-29 training missions in the US.
- ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago> In today's money the aircraft, from design to completion, cost the equivalent of $55.6bn (£41.2bn). F-35: "Hold my beer."
- panick21_ 1y agoThe F-35 is 3 planes in one platform and cost something like 70 billion $ to design.
- ChrisMarshallNY 1y agoI’ve heard much higher figures; approaching 1 trillion dollars.
- KylerAce 1y agoThat's the estimated total cost of the joint strike fighter program including research, acquisition, and maintenance, up to its current intended retirement in the 2060s
- ChrisMarshallNY 1y agoFair point, but we should look at the length of time from napkin sketch to first delivery of final product; not just the design. I understand that the manufacturing and testing was a nightmare, with the need to redesign multiple subsystems.
- bigyabai 1y agoIf the estimated unit cost of ~90-110 million dollars is right, I'd argue it's a pretty big success. The absolute cheapest 4th generation fighter would cost you an order of 20-30 million dollars to import brand-new, whereas 4.5th generation platforms like the Rafale commonly fetch 100m+ a unit to import. As far as credible 5th generation strike fighters go, that's a pretty cheap per-squadron price tag. My bigger gripe is with the "Big Bomb Diplomacy" tactics that require such a platform, but we'd end up wanting one either way if a fight with China is in the cards.
- vanderZwan 1y agoWell, it cost more to design and build. I personally would consider the total cost of dropping two atomic bombs much higher, for hopefully obvious reasons. EDIT: Although, per the article, I might have been wrong about that: > The loss of life was shocking. The B-29 raid on Tokyo on the night of 9 March 1945 is thought to have killed as many as 100,000 people, making it more destructive than either of the atomic bombs that were to follow. Fascinating bit of history though, thank you for sharing.
- roughly 1y agoThe US's conventional bombing raids on Japan were extensive - they had all but destroyed most Japanese cities by the time the nuclear bombs were dropped. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not large and notable Japanese cities, but they were among the only ones left by that time.
- chiph 1y agoEach turret had it's own analog computer. Here's an explanation by the curator at The Museum of Flight in Seattle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOX-2d9qLec https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOX-2d9qLec The B-29 also had ECM detectors and transmitters, so they could block enemy radar signals.
- Animats 1y agoThe animated training film for B-29 gunners.[1] For a sense of what air to air gunnery is like without computer assistance, see the corresponding training film for B-17 gunners. [2]. [1] https://archive.org/details/19584-army-air-forces-gunnery-in-the-b-29-how-to-shoot-vwr https://archive.org/details/19584-army-air-forces-gunnery-in... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoHOVUKOc0M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoHOVUKOc0M
- xyzelement 1y agoReally enjoyed this. A few months ago I took an Appleseed rifle skills course. It's amazing what goes inyo "just" hitting a static target from a static position at 25 yards with soft time constraints. It's amazing what goes into hitting a moving target from a moving plane in a few seconds.
- matheusmoreira 1y agoI love these military training movies, they're so good at teaching complex concepts. This one about celestial navigation is really good as well: https://youtu.be/UV1V9-nnaAs https://youtu.be/UV1V9-nnaAs
- yread 1y agoSo it basically worked like dogfights in starwars ep.4
- Hikikomori 1y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo "Secret History of Silicon Valley" talks a lot about electronic warfare of ww2.
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- RattlesnakeJake 1y agoI saw "Bockscar" (the B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki) yesterday in Dayton. It's an interesting feeling to stand by a beautiful, poised, marvelously-engineered mass death machine. It doesn't look scary at all, yet that silhouette must have been as terrifying in its prime as the B-2 is now.
- stankybruh 1y agoWow what a wild bit of history. I knew nothing about any of this.
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- a3w 1y ago> The bombers had been built by hand because the factory was also making other aircraft on the assembly line, and the B-29s differed in hundreds of tiny details. No B-29 in those first batches weighed exactly the same, a worrying state for such a highly complicated aircraft. Only 20% of the "finished" aircraft could be flown out of the factory. Badly fitted windows and observation panels bled air or were distorted, and many electrical plugs in the plane's 16km (10 miles) of wiring didn't work properly. Any European today still wonders why Tesla workers in the US still cannot hold a screwdriver, producing widely worrying results and claiming that the product is a valid car.
- BobbyTables2 1y agoWhy do Europeans buy American cars? I never could figure that one out either…
- pdpi 1y agoWe don't, for the most part. Most American brands are fairly unpopular here. Tesla is (was?) the exception.
- seabass-labrax 1y agoI'm not sure - I certainly see a lot of Vauxhall/Opel cars about, and Ford Transit vans are pretty universal. Caterpillar vehicles are hard not to see on construction sites in Europe. The only sector where American brands seem to have absolutely no market penetration at all is that of heavy trucks, to the extent that I have never seen one except at vehicle shows.
- pcrh 1y agoNice article, thanks! This is apparently a picture of the B-29 "Its Hawg's Wild" mentioned in the article before its restoration and flight to the UK: https://i.imgur.com/9e26SKj.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/9e26SKj.jpeg Taken from this blog which has some pictures of the restoration project: https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2015/08/b-29-its-hawg-wild-went-from-tow-truck.html https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2015/08/b-29-its-hawg-wild-...
- 7e 1y agoThey made 4,000 copies of this aircraft. That’s only $12.5 million per, in today’s dollars.
- wkat4242 1y agoA wwii bomber is a weird first pressurised aircraft.. after all one bullet and you have explosive decompression.
- jayd16 1y agoIts not an issue when fighters can't reach your altitude.
- sien 1y agoInterestingly by the time it came into service the Me-262 could reach it. B-29 service ceiling was 9710 m. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B-29_Superfortress#Specifications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B-29_Superfortress#Spec... For the Me-262 the service ceiling: 11,450 m https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_262#Specifications_(Messerschmitt_Me_262_A-1a) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_262#Specifica... The B-29 was an absolutely insane technical achievement. But it's also completely crazy to think that as soon as it was in service the Me-262 had made it obsolete. Also the German development of guided surface to air missiles. The US immediately had to build a pressurized jet bomber that would operate in a considerably tougher environment. The US had began working on what would wind up as the B-52 that would fly 6 years later in 1951. By that point you'd think that everything would keep changing. Yet here we are almost 75 years later and the B-52 is still a US combat aircraft that is expected to stay in service until the 2050s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B-52_Stratofortress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B-52_Stratofortress The pace of technological development is so crazy.
- UncleSlacky 1y agoCould be the reason that the B-29 was never used over Germany.
- Aloha 1y agoThe ME109 could also reach the service ceiling of the B-29
- nopelynopington 1y agoThere's a good book by Malcolm Gladwell called "the bomber mafia" that's all about the airforce doctrine of indiscriminate bombing to break the population and the rebel faction within the airforce who advocated high precision bombing instead. Crippling industry instead of punishing civilians. They eventually lost out to the former, culminating in horrific napalm raids on Japan that continued even after the atomic bombs were dropped and had more casualties
- daymanstep 1y agoPrecision bombing? With WW2 era tech? In WW2 you were lucky if you managed to hit a city-sized target, never mind an industrial site.
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- SapporoChris 1y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision_bombing#World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision_bombing#World_War_II "These provided impressive accuracy—British post-raid analysis showed that the vast majority of the bombs dropped could be placed within 100 yards (91 m) of the midline of the beam, spread along it a few hundred yards around the target point, even in pitch-dark conditions at a range of several hundred miles. But the systems fatally depended on accurate radio reception, and the British invented the first electronic warfare techniques to successfully counter this weapon in the 'Battle of the Beams' " I do hope wherever you are from that your cities are larger than a few hundred yards.
- seabass-labrax 1y agoThe article you link to is about radio navigation based on ground stations. The USA would have required at least an island near the Japanese mainland on which to establish such a ground station, or perhaps a ship if it could maintain an accurate position based on traditional methods. Even then, I don't think it would be correct to say that the Americans had no other capabilities for targeted attacks. With air superiority you can do strafing at relatively low risk, which is very accurate. And the USA had also developed rockets by this point, which could drastically improve accuracy when compared to unpropelled bombs. They even used these operationally against Japan before the atomic bomb attacks.
- Hilift 1y agoThe cost of a B-61 nuclear gravity bomb is only $28 million (2012). There are approximately 400, of which 100 were moved to Europe in 2022. They can only be launched by an F-18 or F-35 with a special armament control package (not included in the $28 million). $28 million gets you spin rocket motors that improve accuracy to within 10 meters, and internal and celestial guidance. The yield is variable ("dial-a-yield") (10-340kt) to allow selecting the amount of tritium for the explosion. The cost for an F-22 is $191 million (2023). A B-2 is $2 billion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B61_nuclear_bomb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B61_nuclear_bomb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-22_Raptor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-22_Raptor
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- LightBug1 1y ago$2 billion !!!!?!!!!
- bitmasher9 1y agoAnd we bought 21 of them. So $42 billion for the airplanes. This figure does not include operational costs such as training, fuel, maintenance, etc.
- dh2022 1y agoMaintenance includes repainting the plane with a special radar absorbing paints every 7 years. The repaint job takes one (1!!!) year - https://www.cleveland.com/nation/2010/06/b-2_stealth_bombers_require_60.html https://www.cleveland.com/nation/2010/06/b-2_stealth_bombers...
- KyleBerezin 1y agoThe joke is "B-2 isn't the name, it's the pricetag"
- lazide 1y ago
- nickdothutton 1y agoFor those interested in this period, I highly recommend the Errol Morris interview with RSMcNamara[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fog_of_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fog_of_War
- Someone 1y agoFTA: “The B-29 had entered service in a little over three years since design work began. "It's very quick, even for World War Two standards," says Kinney” Not for German standards. Near the end of the war, their schedules were frantic, for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinkel_He_162_Volksjäger#Volksjäger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinkel_He_162_Volksjäger#Volk...: “On 8 September 1944, the requirement was issued to industry; bidders were required to submit their basic designs within ten days while quantity production of the aircraft was to commence by 1 January 1945 […] During January 1945, the Luftwaffe formed an Erprobungskommando 162 ("Test Unit 162") evaluation group to which the first 46 aircraft were delivered“ I remember reading about even faster development cycles, but cannot find links.
- chrisco255 1y agoAnd how many pressurized bombers with a flight profile and carrying capacity similar to the B-29 did the Luftwaffe produce? Zero. If you read the article it goes into the technical innovation introduced by this aircraft. It was not a slight modification of an existing design, but a total rethink of how a bomber jet could be designed.
- dzonga 1y agoWhat's more impressive to me - is how much production was ramped up during WW2. e.g https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willow_Run https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willow_Run - that plant was producing a bomber almost every hour to this day not a lot of countries can produce a full plane in an hour. I don't think the US can